Gimme Old Time Religion

The issues surrounding religion in America have always been complex. The idea that we have a separation of Church and State as established by the Constitution is immediately contradicted by the phrase “In God we Trust” engraved on our money. Our President is sworn in with his hand on a Bible and we have Prayer Breakfasts as a part of the ritual of serving in Congress. If you are praying to a different God, have no God or well actually think that you are religious but the foundation of our Country was to have a Government distinct from the Houses of Worship that one is allowed to freely pursue, it makes it a complicated relationship. This is an excellent explanation from the Library of Congress that fully explains and documents how this issue of State and Religion came into the Constitution and the debate surrounding it. And as we just had Presidents Day on Monday it is a good time to note how the First President viewed faith as a construct in both personal and professional beliefs.

In his Farewell Address, the first president advised his fellow citizens that “Religion and morality” were the “great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.” “National morality,” he added, could not exist “in exclusion of religious principle.” “Virtue or morality,” he concluded, as the products of religion, were “a necessary spring of popular government.

Now with that the idea of a wall between the two has always been a tenuous one and equally as a ineffective as the one being attempted at the Southern Border. Jefferson wrote this.” Many in the United States, including the courts, have used this phrase to interpret the Founders’ intentions regarding the relationship between government and religion, as set down by the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .”

And from that we are off to the races as this is the same President who enabled religious services to be conducted on Federal property and in turn attended Church despite at one point believed to be less inclined: Not only riding a horse to his local Church, he allowed worship services in the House–a practice that continued until after the Civil War–were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a “crowded audience.” Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.

Well that should make Amy Coney-Barrett excited as should Alito and Thomas who are equally enamored of whatever trappings the higher Courts position should be in society. How terrifying.

As our Government also provides tax exclusions and exemptions for religious organizations of whatever faith and that has led Scientology to literally take a town hostage in their pursuit of expansion. And with that there is a Hasidic has done the same in in Kiryas Joel Village in New York. This means Schools and other “affiliations” that are an organized Religion or are affiliated with one, are also allowed to do so and with that tax dollars. So now are money, which has been subsidizing them through those same tax exemptions and local laws, again as this story about Hasidic sect of Judiasm has been doing to their own children’s detriment, can now be directly funneled to religious schools which for years has not been permitted thanks to that “wall” concept. The Supremes decison with regards to Maine’s voucher program opened a crack in the wall and the praying Coach another.

Many of the cases that have been pushed forward to the Supremes are based in Religious Liberty and freedom and that any attempt to legislate under the guise of parity and equity does in fact infringe a right over one protected entity over another. Gay and want a cake baked or a website designed? Well you can’t make them or they will leave a cake out in the rain. Which if said Baker/Designer put a sign out front that said “No Shirts No Shoes No Gays” then that third one is a problem. Hey just try this: “No Shirts No Shoes and hey have you read this? Leviticus 18:22: You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” That just may be the hint you need that they are not someone you want to hire. Again whom one hires to do work for you is not always a perfect match (see the ahole I hired to do my Taxes); however, I am pretty sure I could find a Baker or Web Designer who is how do we say this? Less fucked up?

With this is I am all pro Religion just not for me nor something I want to explain, get into or actually care about. What you do is what you do. I have gone out of my way avoiding this but it is like all the Culture War topics of late, you simply cannot. I realize why. No one reads or has actually interesting hobbies. They don’t read books, see movies, attend concerts or theater and if they do they can barely articulate their opinion on that. Again comprehension is a problem and with that the ability to critically analyze and evaluate a source or work. The Bible, however, not a problem in the least!

The rise of Christian Nationalism is an offshoot of much of what has become a true push by the Evangelical right to end Abortion, to do harm to Gay Rights, Ban Books and other subjects they find “morally offensive.” And in turn end Democracy. The moron Lauren Boebert preaches garbage at the mall Churches advocating death for Biden and explaining her version of what American Democracy is not. Yes dear, we are a Constitutional Republic but in that document is in fact the established rule and foundation of what defines a Democracy. Again we have failed in our schools people as Marjorie Taylor Greene has called for the Red States to “Divorce” the Blue ones. Yes dear, that was tried a few 100 years ago and it was called the Civil War. It did not end well for those same Red States. No seriously our Educational system is pushing these morons out into the world and what does it say or more importantly explain how they were elected?

And with that I loved the movie Elmer Gantry. Burt Lancaster folks so fine a specimen of a man and a talented actor. Shirley Jones also in it with Jean Simmons, based on the book by Sinclair Lewis who is having a resurgence of late with regards to his book It Can’t Happen Here. Oh yes it can.

With that we have the Pope condemning the Latin Masses for their move towards a Conservative form of Catholicism, one that former AG Bill Barr is a fan and it is a growing movement. So natch the Evangelicals have found a way to restore the Revival thanks to Tik Tok. There is your influencer right there. Read about how this small town and equally small non-secular school found themselves the center of the new prayer movement. The new Woodstock only less drugs, sex and good music. Yikes.

Woodstock’ for Christians: Revival Draws Thousands to Kentucky Town

Over two weeks, more than 50,000 people descended on a small campus chapel to experience the nation’s first major spiritual revival in decades — one driven by Gen Z.

By Ruth Graham The New York Times

• Feb. 23, 2023

WILMORE, Ky. — Jennifer Palmer told her boss on Thursday morning that she had to leave work, and drove 11 hours straight from Jacksonville, Fla., to get here.

Jayden Peech, a high school student from a few hours away in Kentucky, came with his mother after listening to a speaker at their church. Valor Christian College in Ohio canceled classes, and almost the entire student body drove down in a bus, with no plans for where they would spend the night.

For two weeks, tens of thousands of people have made a pilgrimage to a tiny Christian college, about 30 minutes south of Lexington, for what some scholars and worshipers describe as the nation’s first major spiritual revival of the 21st century.

Drawn by posts on TikTok and Instagram, plus old-fashioned word of mouth, Christians from across the country poured through a chapel on the campus of Asbury University to pray and sing until the wee hours of the morning, lining up hours before the doors opened and leaving only when volunteers closed the chapel at 1 a.m. to clean it for the next day.

They were hoping “to experience the presence” of God, Brittany Faubel, a Valor student, said.

The unplanned event has strained the campus and kept the little chapel filled at all hours, prompting administrators to wind down the spectacle and disruption. Beginning Friday, the school said, there will be no more public events. Students said they were ready to return to their normal campus rhythms.

Nascent revivals are now breaking out at other college campuses, including at Lee University in Tennessee and Cedarville University in Ohio, though it remains to be seen if they will sustain the same fervor seen in Asbury.

The revival at Asbury began on Feb. 8, when a few dozen students lingered after an ordinary morning chapel service to continue singing and praying together. Word about the spontaneous gathering spread on campus, and by evening, students were dragging mattresses into the chapel to spend the night. Within days, their enthusiasm had exploded into a national event.

The university estimates that the revival has drawn more than 50,000 people to Wilmore, a sleepy town of 6,000 people where the grocery store hosts a weekly Bible study and police cars read “In God We Trust.” Asbury was founded in 1890, and its roots are in the Methodist and Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, which has a historical emphasis on transformative movements of the Holy Spirit.

Asbury, with its campus set in rural Kentucky, has a mostly white student body. But the revival itself attracted a slightly more diverse crowd.

“It’s like Woodstock,” said Nick Hall, 40, an evangelist from Minnesota who arrived last week to witness the kind of spiritual outpouring that he and others have long prayed for. “This thing that’s happening there is so organic and raw, not flashy, not cool — it’s the anti-cool.”

By any definition, a revival is characterized by spontaneous long-lasting episodes of collective worship: extemporaneous prayer, stirring music and rousing preaching. The concept has a history stretching back to at least the First Great Awakening in 18th-century New England, when crowds of newly fervent Protestants gathered to hear vivid extemporaneous sermons by pastors like Jonathan Edwards.

In the lively tent revivals of the 20th-century South, Pentecostals prayed in tongues and said they experienced divine healing. And the notion remains potent for Christians from many traditions and Protestant denominations.

In recent years, the idea of revival has become a touchstone for some conservatives, including religious leaders who have advanced false accounts of election fraud and vaccine skepticism, and have claimed America is on the brink of a political and cultural revival.

For many other Christians, however, revival is primarily a spiritual phenomenon. Some at Asbury said they preferred the term “outpouring,” as in an almost tangible effusion of the Holy Spirit.

“Sixteen-plus-hour days feel like five minutes,” said Eli Baker, an Asbury undergraduate who was talking intensely with his friend Brenden Krebs at a packed coffee shop on Day 10 of the revival. They both described having intense personal experiences that they attributed to the Holy Spirit’s presence.

By last weekend in Wilmore, almost every parking lot in town was full, and traffic was backed up far along the road coming from Lexington. The university had scrambled to set up banks of portable toilets, a large screen on the lawn to simulcast what was happening onstage in the chapel and heat lamps, when the temperature dropped and snow began to flurry. The line to get into the chapel on Saturday afternoon was a half-mile long.

A Salvation Army truck arrived to hand out coffee and pizza; another truck offered free pancakes to people leaving and arriving in the middle of the night.

“Never could I have imagined what we are experiencing now,” said Kevin Brown, who has been the university’s president since 2019, and spent several very late nights in the chapel. “There’s a deep hunger born of this trenchant dissatisfaction and disillusionment with what has been handed to the younger generation, and I think they’re just raising their gaze to higher things.”

The campus setting has helped define the revival for many observers as one driven by Generation Z and speaking to their needs.

The Asbury revival is “marked by overwhelming peace for a generation marked by anxiety,” said Madison Pierce, a student at the unaffiliated Asbury Theological Seminary across the street who volunteered to pray with visitors and help with logistics.

“It’s marked by joy for a generation marked by suicidal ideation,” Mr. Pierce said. “It’s marked by humility for a generation traumatized by the abuse of religious power.”

The school set up a separate fast-tracked entrance line for visitors 25 and younger, blocked off the front section of seating for them and invited them to rest after the service in a quiet room with jigsaw puzzles and snacks. Many young people spent the night there, or crashed in dorm rooms with student hosts.

Signs in the chapel asked visitors not to livestream the services or to record long videos, to “respect this space.”

Generation Z might not seem the likeliest incubator of spiritual revival. Generally defined as those born in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it is the least religious generation in American memory. Fully one-third of Gen Z identifies as religiously unaffiliated, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s American National Family Life Survey, compared to 25 percent of Generation X and 18 percent of baby boomers.

But this cohort has also experienced extraordinary stress and loneliness.

Alison Perfater, the Asbury student body president, pointed to the “division and the political unrest of 2020” and the Covid-19 pandemic. “We were due for a breaking point, but instead of it being a horrible breaking point, it was peaceful and sweet,” she said.

Many drawn to Asbury in recent weeks describe an extraordinary sense of peace in the room. Attendees of all ages recall bursting into tears upon entering the building.

“It doesn’t feel like America in 2023 in here,” said Margaret Feinberg, who traveled from Park City, Utah, to attend. “It just melts away.” She was standing against the wall on Friday afternoon and watching quietly as the crowd sang contemporary worship songs like Bethel Music’s “Goodness of God” and older hymns like “It Is Well With My Soul.” The lyrics were not projected on any screens, as they are in most contemporary churches; the crowd knew them by heart, and if they didn’t, they learned as they went along.

Ms. Feinberg was at a revival in the 1990s in Canada and spent a year in her 20s at the Brownsville revival in the late 1990s in Pensacola, Fla. Asbury itself was the scene of a smaller revival in 1970.

“We’ve been beat up by life — we all have been over the last few years,” Ms. Feinberg said. “Everyone is looking for healing.”

Healing is a consistent theme in the modern history of revivals.

But if 20th-century revivals focused on healing physical pains and disabilities, accounts of healing at Asbury are overwhelmingly about mental health, trauma and disillusionment.

“You have a generation identifying that these are the problems of our generation that are intractable,” said Erica Ramirez, the director of research at Auburn Seminary, who has written often about revivals and charismatic theology. “So many of their friends are not well.”

Ms. Ramirez was struck by an account that circulated online about a young woman sharing from the stage that she had attempted suicide just weeks before, but ending her testimony by jumping for joy. Ms. Ramirez compared the moment to the archetypal 20th-century revival scene where a person who could not previously walk throws down their crutches in triumph.

Elijah Drake, a student at the seminary, stopped by the first afternoon when he heard that a group had gathered there. He stayed until 2 a.m. and returned the next day.

“It’s been a very sacred space,” he said. Mr. Drake is gay, and said he had reconciled at the revival with a fellow seminarian he had once clashed with over politics he described as “right-wing homophobia.”

Mr. Drake, who is pursuing ordination in the Free Methodist denomination, said the first days of the revival were a period of healing and unity.

In the days that followed, Mr. Drake joined other students, faculty and staff in serving as ad-hoc support staff for the event. One evening, he served as an usher in one of the overflow chapels that opened to receive worshipers who didn’t fit in the main venue. He kept thinking the energy would peter out — maybe the Super Bowl would be a distraction? — but instead it just kept growing.

Over time, influencers and celebrity pastors began to stream into town, posting photos and clips and selfies online. Rich Wilkerson Jr., the Florida pastor who married Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, was there; so was Kari Jobe, a popular Christian singer.

The self-described prophets and online spiritual leaders who supported former President Donald Trump also began posting about the revival, sometimes from afar. By this week, activist and author Lance Wallnau was suggesting in a television appearance that perhaps Mr. Trump had supernaturally summoned the revival himself.

But organizers attempted to keep politics out of the spotlight. None of the big names promoting the revival were invited to take the stage, where a group of student musicians and college chaplains led a distinctly low-fi service, with little of the aesthetic slickness of the contemporary American megachurch.

For some students, the weeks of attention and disruption eventually became wearying; one undergraduate described finding adults sleeping on a bench outside one of her classrooms.

But for a while, at least, the students had been at the center of something special.

Carissa Fender, 25, described feeling an unusual calmness when she had entered the chapel last week with her husband and 15-month-old daughter, a comfort after a stressful cross-country move to Cleveland, Tenn.

“I was just overwhelmed with our own personal stuff, and it was like a peace came over me,” Ms. Fender said. “I can cry and give him everything, and this is a safe space.”

Daddy’s Got This

I have said repeatedly that to many of the insane freaks who descended upon the Capital on January 6th saw Trump as their Father Figure. Now naturally many of the men are too old to be the actual progeny of the 75 year old moron but it is not lost on me that Trump often played the gayest group of my lifetime, the Village People, as a call to arms, literally. The added irony that again many of the older crowd were likely the participants in another debacle of Disco hate that dominated the late 70s as it was seen as integration through music. “The” Blacks, “The”Gays and “The” Women were living large and free dancing to the Bee Gees and equality seemed no longer an illusion but a possibility. And then game the haters of the players and the game gave way to the Disco Sucks Movement. Here is a story behind that rage that led to a near riot at a baseball game. Yes folks the precursor to January 6th has a history of Bigotry by the AWM.

And for many who are White and Aggrieved be they male or female, “The” Donald spoke to them in the same way their Father did, abusively, dismissively and full of mockery about “the” others. All Families have this Patriarch, the Father, Grandfather or a Drunk Uncle who uses family gatherings as opportunity to unleash is loathing of what is wrong with the world – The Pill, Abortion, Blacks, Gays, Women, Jews, Mexicans, Video Games, Heavy Metal, Hippies, Democrats, etc….. They are the reason the world is falling apart and then it is of course preceded by the comment, “Back in my day.” Yes those were the better days and in turn “The”Donald echoed that same belief when he coined the phrase, Make America Great Again.

It does resemble a cult, the fanatical leader who is enigmatic, both charming and yet elusive, the surrounding oneself with family and those whom reflect his vision of the self, and of course isolation that enables the pursuit of ignorance and dismissal of anyone who challenges their beliefs or “their truths.” The cult leader thrives on submission and fealty and anyone who challenges them or is not willing to comply of course is dismissed and degraded. You see this in Scientology as a most classic example of what defines group think. And MAGA is much like that. A grandiose paranoia veils the movement and of course FEAR is the prime motivating factor.

I urge you to read this article in the NY Times about how these devotees see themselves in relation to the world and with that the belief that Trump is going to be their “savior” from “the” others who are going to take what they have. They are the ones who will take Social Security, Health Care, get free education and in turn take their Bibles and Guns leaving them without any safety net or tool in which to protect themselves. Many are less educated, live in dying rural areas and are lowly paid, often ill and heavily religious. That last thing makes one predisposed to lies and untruths more than most as well what do you think religion is? Truth or Myth? They are afraid and alone without anyone actually speaking to them in the language they understand and that is a large failing by Liberals as they speak in multiple syllables and use a tone that is both scolding and patronizing as one does to a child. I see and experience this here watching Liberal New Yorkers act like entitled brats over nothing. They are often the most arrogant motherfuckers I have met, Southerners and Seattle not withstanding are passive aggressive but New Yorkers skip the passive part and hit for the jugular. You see that with Trump and here are the same folks horrified by that behavior yet embracing it. New Yorkers recognize it but on that note they too love it as he is a smokescreen for their most basest of beliefs and fears that they too have, they just cover it better than most. And yes folks there are plenty of Manhattan residents who are MAGA members, they are wealthy, white and very aggrieved.

Nixon’s Revenge

I have long thought we are moving back in time in some version of Groundhog Day with the election of Trump, Covid and the Supreme Court, the Civil Rights unrest and the move towards a Theocratic nation. The essay below I believe conveys much of what I have been thinking and in turn references the correct actions and policy decisions made in that era of the free wheeling disco loving 70s. The dog whistle politics are alive and well and I have long pointed to many Nixon stalwarts existence throughout the last decades, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney to name two, who I have always thought they were attempting their own coup to revenge the loss of their idol in Conservative politics – Dick Nixon.

I have long been fascinated by Nixon and only last year another book was released discussing his fraught Political career; with that the Showtime series that covered the First Ladies included Betty Ford whose husband’s brief stay in the gig (Nixon’s 2nd VP) seems to many to be a footnote but one I think is rather important as we move forward into the 2024 elections. And no, Joe Biden will either not run nor be elected as he is our Jimmy Carter President, down to the Inflation centering on the price of gas. The reality is that we are ready to WIN, the long joked about program about Whipping Inflation Now! And with that further push to deregulate shit. Like Housing, the massive crisis facing ALL of America.

And with that I suspect Trump will run again as a way of staving off criminal charges, with that he will pick a new VP (aka a 2nd) and that will be Ron DeSantis of Florida, just the name alone is enough to see the parallels. Then with that Trump will either be Impeached and/or die in that term which means DeSantis will be the Gerald Ford of Presidents; the man who created WIN! (Again parallels not lost) I do not see him winning a second election as that is akin to LBJ and with that he too will be a single term like Daddy Bush. And with that comes the rise of the White Youthful JFK type. Right now it looks like Gavin Newsom and with that he has 6 years or so to build that resume and age in place. The VP pick will be an outlier, but again that will be a White Man.. who Pete Buttigieg. He is White but Gay and with that an experienced Cabinet Member who has a better understanding of navigating Congress and more importantly State Governors. This is truly an essential tool. Will we see a Woman President? Maybe but she will be a Republican in the vein of an Eisenhower, not transformative in the least but not nuts. But again Buttigieg has the same chops and Eisenhower did in fact build the national highway system. As for a Black President, no, not again lifetime nor a Latin one. But we will have them as Vice Presidents in the next 20 years. Again as you look back in time even FDR was a man in a wheelchair and that Truman was a former Store Operator. So we have interesting times ahead as we move back in time.

Americans are terrified and they scare easily. We are also not as educated nor as intelligent as believed. Most live in a bubble, they rarely venture out of their comfort range and repeat what they are told or hear from others, not seeking anything that would challenge or push them out of that range of safety. Familiarity breeds not contempt but in fact contentment. Nixon like Trump understood that an that whistle brings all the dogs to the Capital Yard.

We Are Living in Richard Nixon’s America. Escaping It Won’t Be Easy.

By Kevin Boyle Mr. Boyle is the author of “The Shattering: America in the 1960s.”

July 31, 2022 The New York Times Opinion

It seems so naïve now, that moment in 2020 when Democratic insiders started to talk of Joe Biden as a transformational figure. But there were reasons to believe. To hold off a pandemic-induced collapse, the federal government had injected $2.2 trillion into the economy, much of it in New Deal-style relief. The summer’s protests altered the public’s perception of race’s role in the criminal justice system. And analyses were pointing to Republican losses large enough to clear the way for the biggest burst of progressive legislation since the 1960s.

Two years on, the truth is easier to see. We aren’t living in Franklin Roosevelt’s America or Lyndon Johnson’s or Donald Trump’s or even Joe Biden’s. We’re living in Richard Nixon’s.

Not the America of Nixon’s last years, though there are dim echoes of it in the Jan. 6 hearings, but the nation he built before Watergate brought him down, where progressive possibilities would be choked off by law and order’s toxic politics and a Supreme Court he’d helped to shape.

He already had his core message set in the early days of his 1968 campaign. In a February speech in New Hampshire, he said: “When a nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is torn apart by lawlessness, when a nation which has been the symbol of equality of opportunity is torn apart by racial strife … then I say it’s time for new leadership in the United States of America.”

There it is: the fusion of crime, race and fear that Nixon believed would carry him to the presidency.

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Over the course of that year, he gave his pitch a populist twist by saying that he was running to defend all those hard-working, law-abiding Americans who occupied “the silent center.”

A month later, after a major Supreme Court ruling on school integration, he quietly told key supporters that if he was elected, he would nominate only justices who would oppose the court’s progressivism. And on the August night he accepted the Republican nomination, he gave it all a colorblind sheen. “To those who say that law and order is the code word for racism, there and here is a reply,” he said. “Our goal is justice for every American.”

In practice, it didn’t work that way. Within two years of his election, Nixon had passed two major crime bills laced with provisions targeting poor Black communities. One laid the groundwork for a racialized war on drugs. The other turned the criminal code of Washington, D.C., into a model for states to follow by authorizing the district’s judges to issue no-knock warrants, allowing them to detain suspects they deemed dangerous and requiring them to impose mandatory minimum sentences on those convicted of violent crimes.

And the nation’s police would have all the help they needed to restore law and order. Lyndon Johnson sent about $20 million in aid to police departments and prison systems in his last two years in office. Nixon sent $3 billion. Up went departments’ purchases of military-grade weapons, their use of heavily armed tactical patrols, the number of officers they put on the streets. And up went the nation’s prison population, by 16 percent, while the Black share of the newly incarcerated reached its highest level in 50 years.

Nixon’s new order reached into the Supreme Court, too, just as he said it would. His predecessors had made their first nominations to the court by the fluid standards presidents tended to apply to the process: Dwight Eisenhower wanted a moderate Republican who seemed like a statesman, John Kennedy someone with the vigor of a New Frontiersman, Johnson an old Washington hand who understood where his loyalties lay. For his first appointment, in May 1969, Nixon chose a little-known federal judge, Warren Burger, with an extensive record supporting prosecutorial and police power over the rights of the accused.

When a second seat opened a few months later, he followed the same pattern, twice nominating judges who had at one point either expressed opposition to the integration of the races or whose rulings were regarded as favoring segregation. Only when the Senate rejected both of them did Nixon fall back on Harry Blackmun, the sort of centrist Ike would have loved.

Two more justices stepped down in September 1971. Again Nixon picked nominees who he knew would be tough on crime and soft on civil rights — and by then, he had a more expansive agenda in mind. It included an aversion to government regulation of the private sector — and so one pick was the courtly corporate lawyer Lewis Powell, who had written an influential memo that year to the director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce advocating a robust corporate defense of the free enterprise system. Another item on Nixon’s agenda was to devolve federal power down to the states. William Rehnquist, an assistant attorney general committed to that view, was his other pick. The two foundational principles of an increasingly energized conservatism were set into the court by Nixon’s determination to select his nominees through a precisely defined litmus test previous presidents hadn’t imagined applying.

Our view of the Burger court may be skewed in part because Nixon’s test didn’t include abortion. By 1971, abortion politics had become furiously contested, but the divisions followed demography as well as political affiliation: In polling then (which wasn’t as representative as it is today), among white people, men were slightly more likely than women to support the right to choose, the non-Catholic college-educated more likely than those without college degrees, non-Catholics far more likely than Catholics, who anchored the opposition. So it wasn’t surprising that after oral arguments, three of the four white Protestant men Nixon had put on the court voted for Roe and that one of them wrote the majority opinion.

Justice Blackmun was still drafting the court’s decision in May 1972 when Nixon sent a letter to New York’s Catholic cardinal, offering his “admiration, sympathy and support” for the church stepping in as “defenders of the right to life of the unborn.” The Republican assemblywoman who had led New York’s decriminalization of abortion denounced his intervention as “a patent pitch for the Catholic vote.” That it was. In November, Nixon carried the Catholic vote, thanks to a move that gave the abortion wars a partisan alignment they hadn’t had before.

Nixon’s version of law and order has endured, through Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs, George H.W. Bush’s Crime Control Act of 1990 and Bill Clinton’s crime bill to broken windows, stop-and-frisk and the inexorable rise in mass incarceration. The ideological vetting of justices has increased in intensity and in precision.

Mr. Trump’s term entrenched a party beholden to the configurations of politics and power that Nixon shaped half a century ago. The possibility of progressive change that seemed to open in 2020 has now been shut down. The court’s supermajority handed down the first of what could be at least a decade of rulings eviscerating liberal precedents. Crime and gun violence now outstrip race as one of the electorate’s major concerns.

Mr. Trump, in a speech on Tuesday, made it clear that he would continue to hammer the theme as he considers a 2024 run: “If we don’t have safety, we don’t have freedom,” he said, adding that “America First must mean safety first” and “we need an all-out effort to defeat violent crime in America and strongly defeat it. And be tough. And be nasty and be mean if we have to.”

An order so firmly entrenched won’t easily be undone. It’s tempting to talk about expanding the court or imposing age limits. But court reform has no plausible path through the Senate. Even if it did, the results might not be progressive: Republicans are as likely as Democrats to pack a court once they control Congress, and age limits wouldn’t affect some of the most conservative justices for at least another 13 years. The truth is, the court will be remade as it always has been, a justice at a time.

The court will undoubtedly limit progressive policies, too, as it has already done on corporate regulation and gun control. But it’s also opened up the possibility of undoing some of the partisan alignments that Nixon put into place, on abortion most of all. Now that Roe is gone, the Democrats have the chance to reclaim that portion of anti-abortion voters who support the government interventions — like prenatal and early child care — that a post-Roe nation desperately needs and the Republican Party almost certainly won’t provide.

Nothing matters more, though, than shattering Nixon’s fusion of race, crime and fear. To do that, liberals must take up violent crime as a defining issue, something they have been reluctant to do, and then relentlessly rework it and try to break the power of its racial dynamic by telling the public an all-too-obvious truth: The United States is harassed by violent crime because it’s awash in guns, because it has no effective approach to treating mental illness and the epidemic of drug addiction, because it accepts an appalling degree of inequality and allows entire sections of the country to tumble into despair.

Making that case is a long-term undertaking, too, as is to be expected of a project trying to topple half a century of political thinking. But until Nixon’s version of law and order is purged from American public life, we’re going to remain locked into the nation he built on its appeal, its future shaped, as so much of its past has been, by its racism and its fear.

The Second Coming

As I have always done, once I move into a new city I begin to travel outside of it, the varying other cities and states that align the region. So now I am moving northward, having been to Maine, New Hampshire and traveling within New York and New Jersey and to say that once again eyes wide open and ears on fire would be the mantra of the travels.

When in the South I have written extensively on the role of poverty and that fear, co-dependence and acceptance of what is intolerable dominates the system of belief which is framed by the role of religion and the church. I have said that until you have actually stood between the frame of the picture you only see a portion of that perspective that artist created and that is the South. To denigrate them as stereotypes and the archetypes of the “Bubba” is a mistake and one taken at risk as we can see the allure of the South as more relocate there – by choice – and by need as more jobs and industries relocate there thanks to generous tax incentives and a disinclination for regulation. Those issues are problematic in and of itself but I have written about those as well throughout the blog and likely will again; However, as we now have massive divides over issues regarding guns, abortion, LBGQT rights and other civil/voting rights and businesses claiming a position on each, it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the year ahead as we approach 2024.

I read the below article and it struck me as interesting as there are missing facts or let me say details about the individuals portrayed in the story. They fit the stereotypes and one viewing of the Insurrection Hearings can confirm that yes Proud Boys have tatts, bad hair and a wardrobe assembled out of TJ Maxx, but they are willing to seek forgiveness and do the right thing. Funny I cannot say that of their better dressed and educated counterparts. Almost ALL of the Trump minions are Ivy League Educated, often with multiple Ivy’s but the one thread that holds them together is that they are all Religious. Like my friends in the South who belong to a more fractionalized form of faith under the Southern Baptist umbrella, I can point to many who are all active members of their Church, and in the case of most that is the Catholic one. Bill Barr, Kellyanne Conway, Amy Coney Barrett are examples. And with that the Catholic faith was a much more predominant one present in the Trump Administration than Evangelicals as this NPR article discusses.

It does seem odd that so many well educated (I presume as I did not go to an Ivy but I have heard it repeatedly) individuals would believe in the myths of religion. For the record Biden and Harris are not Ivy educated and with that Biden is a practicing Catholic and dedicated to his faith and yet repeatedly the Church has attempted to reject him for his ability to separate his belief’s and his work. Ah yes Church and State it is coming trust me on this.

So when you hear/see the varying depositions of the Trump cadre who are now somehow trying to explain their role and frustrations with the actions of Trump on January 6th, I cannot stress again how they continued to enable and work for him despite the many bizarre actions and behaviors he had from early on. Can you recall Charlottesville and the “both sides” comment. Or the first Impeachment where he tried to extort info from the Ukraine and one wonders what this war would have been like had he remained in office as clearly there is a Putin connection somewhere there. And with that the same educated highly professional individuals who could easily have found work elsewhere remained. One Cabinet Secretary admitted he did not quit as he feared what Trump would have brought in as a replacement. And that was some of the reasoning behind the remaining staff, aka Team Normal, clearly as why else would you but then again even if you are well reasoned do you think Sydney Powell was anyone who should be in a position of influence? So with that I get the “whining” as Kushner so reminded us.

And this week as I was in Saratoga I spoke to two couples both white and well off or reasonably enough so to go there, stay at a hotel and dine out at an expensive hotel, the Adelphi. Couple number one were not staying there but they were dining there as was I, but I was doing the hipster thing and was thrilled with my room which for the record was just over $300 night. Again I travel by train so I offset that cost and put it in my accommodation as I learned during Covid travels you need to as you may not have housekeeping or room service so you need access to at least extra towels and arrange some cleaning on a schedule. I cannot imagine staying in a smaller hotel how that works but hey you do you. But they were there and I gathered had come there before and they both lived in Manhattan at one point and now lived on Long Island near Jones Beach so they were not struggling. That said I know they both went to College and she was I believe a Traveling Nurse as I gleaned that during my convo about traveling in the States. She had be to New Orleans but they seemed to exist solely in the past as he recalled his college traveling days to Kentucky and bored me with that story twice. He said he worked for Bedminster Golf Course as a student and met Trump and said he was a good tipper. At one point I thought he was the most boring and demanding idiot I met, complaining about the beer not cold enough and fussily ordering from the menu. The comment aside about women and their Lifetime movies was enough but he tipped his MAGA hat when he spoke of living in Manhattan and the Bill DiBlasio policy about the homeless, misstating or confusing the Covid policy of using hotels closed by Covid as housing and somehow believing that developers that built new apts/condos had to build an equal number of homeless units. Which right there was utter bullshit as then there would be no housing crisis in NYC, so what.ever. Then he stated about his coming into Grand Central and having to steer himself from the homeless and beggars that were there cluttering the area. And this is is again something that you notice or you don’t. I have been there many times and I of course notice none or being the narcissist I am don’t choose to or care about it and even when I do I get that this is Manhattan. I was more distressed about the homeless man passed out over 24 hours in Saratoga outside my hotel than the ones I pass in the City. And with that I said I cannot comment on that as when I use GC I am busy figuring out where I am to go, grabbing a coffee, and taking care of business than what the goings on are around me. The same with the Subway, that if there is something so outrageous I get off immediately, get another train or get out of the station, walk or grab a cab. The most crazy I have seen were the anti mask crazies and the anti vaxxers who seemed more obsessed with my personal freedom than I with theirs. So we all live in the same city and see and experience the city through our own lens and I left it at that. They were everything I believe are classic MAGA hat wearers, white, middle class, educated and poorly informed. That is the one thing they share with their white trash counterparts the lack of information and a willful ignorance to sustain and uphold their views. These are the Trump army that get the less press and the less salivating portrayals in the media. They are afraid and sure that the Immigrants arriving will take what they have worked for all their lives. They are sure they will get a Drivers License and right to Vote in local elections, a housing credit, and access to medical care all Government supplied. And the most distressing is the concept of free education as the debate over student loans and free community colleges has been a part of the Democratic policy debates of late. The reality is that child care credits, free education, medical care and housing subsidies are all part of larger wealthier socialist nations and yet in America we love to visit but we sure don’t want to live there. And that my friends is where the reality is, they have NEVER visited Stockholm, Germany or France. If they have it is on a Cruise Ship or some Convention, but in reality Americans rarely go beyond their state lines. I read the travel sites on Facebook and there are some veteran travelers but they are not really posting as they are actually doing, most are going for their first time somewhere, scared to death and are seeking info. Much of what Americans do is be sheep, they follow the leader and try to top it or at least be like it. So if their buddy went to Ireland they will go, with a group and they will experience it all in that lens. Group think. That my friends is America, Group thinkers who are SCARED TO DEATH. What I thought was a Southern thing I realize now is an American thing and with that we are fucked. Trump is coming and his army is ready.

On the campaign trail, many Republicans see a civil war

In both swing states and safe seats, GOP candidates say that liberals hate them personally and may turn rioters or a police state on people who disobey them

By David Weigel The Washington Post July 23, 2022

Days before Maryland’s July 19 primary, Michael Peroutka stood up at an Italian restaurant in Rockville and imagined how a foreign enemy might attack America.

“We would expect them to make our borders porous,” Peroutka told the crowd, which had come to hear the Republicans running for state attorney general. “We would expect them to make our cities unsafe places to live. We would expect them to try to ruin our economy.” The country was “at war,” he explained, “and the enemy has co-opted members and agencies and agents of our government.”

On Tuesday, Peroutka easily dispatched a more moderate Republican to win the nomination. State Del. Dan Cox, who won Donald Trump’s endorsement after supporting the former president’s effort to subvert the 2020 election, also dispatched a Republican endorsed by the state’s popular governor, Larry Hogan.

Both candidates described a country that was not merely in trouble, but being destroyed by leaders who despise most Americans— effectively part of a civil war. In both swing states and safe seats, many Republicans say that liberals hate them personally and may turn rioters or a police state on people who disobey them.

Referring to the coronavirus and 2020 protests over police brutality, Cox told supporters at a rally last month, “We were told 14 days to bend the curve, and yet antifa was allowed to burn our police cars in the streets.” He continued: “Do you really think, with what we’re seeing — with the riots that have happened — that we should not have something to defend our families with? This is why we have the Second Amendment.”

The rhetoric is bracing, if not entirely new. Liberal commentators made liberal use of the word “fascism” to describe Trump’s presidency. The baseless theory that President Barack Obama was undermining American power as a foreign agent was popular with some Republicans, including Trump, who succeeded Obama in the White House.

Many Democrats saw the backlash to Obama as specific to his race, and saw Biden as unlikely to inspire mass opposition to Trump in the presidential election. But many Republicans also portray Biden as a malevolent figure — a vessel for a hateful leftist campaign to weaken America.

“It’s purposeful,” said former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who is running in next month’s special election for the state’s sole House seat, in an interview with former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon. “It’s all about the fundamental transformation of America. You only fundamentally transform something for which you have disdain.”

That argument has been dramatized in ads that, for instance, show one armed candidate appearing to charge into the home of a political enemy, and another warning of “the mob” that threatens ordinary Americans. In many cases the candidates are brandishing firearms while threatening harm to liberals or other enemies.

In central Florida, U.S. Army veteran Cory Mills has run ads about his company selling tear gas that was used to quell riots in 2020. “You may have seen some of our work,” he says, introducing a montage of what are labeled “antifa,” “radical left” and “Black Lives Matter” protesters running from the gas.

In northwest Ohio, a campaign video for Republican congressional nominee J.R. Majewski shows him walking through a dilapidated factory, holding a semiautomatic weapon, warning that Democrats will “destroy our economy” with purposefully bad policies.

“Their agenda is bringing America to its knees, and I am willing to do whatever it takes,” says Majewski, who’s seeking a House seat in a district around Toledo that has been redrawn to make Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) beatable. “If I have to kick down doors, that’s just what patriots do.”

In Missouri, Republican Senate candidate Eric Greitens has issued two ads this summer in which he holds or fires weapons, vowing to go “RINO hunting” — for “Republicans in name only” — in one ad and targeting the “political establishment” in the second.

Dreading deep losses in November, some Democrats have spent money to help Republican candidates who talk this wayunder the theory that they will be easier to beat in November. The Democratic Governors Association spent more than $1.1 millionon positive ads for Cox, as he was telling voters that they might one day have to battle antifa with their own weapons.

Candidates like Majewski, however, have won with no assistance from Democrats, aided instead by high turnout and grass-roots energy. The idea that the Biden administration’s policies are designed to fail — to raise gas prices, or increase the cost of food — is a popular campaign theme.

Pollsters have found that Americans are worried about the country sticking together; a YouGov poll released last month had a majority of both Democrats and Republicans agreeing that America would one day “cease to be a democracy.”

Republican wins since 2020, including a sweep in Virginia’s state elections and victory in a special election in June between two Hispanic candidates in South Texas, haven’t lightened the GOP mood. Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist who works with Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidates J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona, said that last year’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large companies was a turning point in views of the Biden administration, even after it was blocked by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

“It’s the number one thing that caused people to go from ‘maybe this is incompetence’ to ‘there’s something else going on here,’ ” Surabian said. “Like, do these people actually want a Chinese-style social credit system?”

Rick Shaftan, a conservative strategist working with Republican challengers this cycle, said that the party’s voters were nervously watching crime rates in the cities, asking whether public safety was being degraded on purpose. He also pointed to government responses to the pandemic as a reason that those voters, and their candidates, were nervous.

“People paid a lot of attention to the truckers,” said Shaftan, referring to Canadian protests against vaccine mandates that occupied Ottawa this year and briefly shut down an international bridge. “Canada’s supposed to be a democracy. … People worry: Can that happen here?”

The arrests of hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has frequently been cited by Republican candidates as proof of a government war on its people.

In early July, at a town hall meeting in southwest Washington state, Republican congressional hopeful Joe Kent told his audience that the “phony riot” on Jan. 6 was being “weaponized against anybody who dissents against what the government is telling us,” from parents angry about public school education to people who had questioned the outcome of the 2020 election.

“These are the types of tactics that I would see in Third World countries when I was serving overseas,” Kent told the crowd gathered in a gazebo in Rochester, a town currently represented by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.). “You’d see the Praetorian Guard or the intelligence services grab the opposition and throw them in the dungeons. I never thought I’d see that in America.”

Trump himself has frequently accused President Biden of trying to ruin the country and create conflict to maintain power.

“Joe Biden helped lead his party’s vile campaign against our police officers, and then he carried the rioters’ agenda straight into the White House,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Las Vegas last month, joined by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the GOP nominee for governor. “The streets are flowing with the blood of innocent crime victims.”

After a draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning federal abortion rights was leaked in early May, a group calling itself Jane’s Revenge took credit for vandalism against crisis pregnancy centers, where women are discouraged from terminating their pregnancies. Those incidents quickly made it into political ads that asked why Democrats were not more strongly condemning violence.

Some Republicans also point to a California man’s alleged assassination plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was among the majority in Dobbs.

“Radical liberals are behaving like terrorists, calling for a summer of rage,” says a narrator in a new ad from Catholic Vote, a conservative group spending $3 million this month to target vulnerable Democratic members of the House. “An assassination attempt on a Supreme Court justice. Domestic terrorists calling it ‘open season.’ ”

Several have echoed Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author, who has argued that the rise in fentanyl deaths looks like an “intentional” result of the Biden administration’s border policies — a way for an unpopular president to “punish the people who didn’t vote for him.”

The argument is not just that Democrats disagree with conservatives, but that they despise them and hurt them on purpose. This past week, after a man attacked Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) at a rally for his gubernatorial campaign, Biden and Vice President Harris condemned the violence, as did Gov. Kathy Hochul (D).

But local Republicans suggested that Democrats had effectively encouraged the attack, pointing to a Democratic news release about the rally “encouraging people to stalk” the candidate, according to one GOP county executive. Although the district attorney who let the attacker out of jail was a Zeldin supporter, the candidate and his party argued that Democratic bail overhauls, passed in 2019, had let the attacker off scot-free.

“If you love America, they hate you,” says Jim Pillen, the Republican nominee for governor of Nebraska, in one TV spot. “If you support the police, they call you racist.”

Damn It All

As we enter a new era in America I want to say it is not new it is of another era firmly planted in past, a time when there were clear gender lines and regulations were a word that applied to the Military and little else. I think the concept of the show Mad Men that gave a sort of glamour to the era but also was clear about the shadows truly conveyed what a shitty time it was but to those who lived it, they see it as idyllic. They saw financial growth, world power, some bastions of what they defined equality and their place in the world was clear. Here we are now 50 years later and this new world, with its pronouns, Women running their own lives, People of Color actually being elected President; It was fine to have a sole Black Man on the Supreme Court and with that today we now have not one “colored” but three, makes two too many. So the effort to turn back time to the days of their lives began in earnest a mere 40 years ago. In my lifetime I saw the security of Civil Rights, some movement towards equality of Women’s Rights (but nowhere near what it should be) and of course Gay Rights. But that was enough but not enough as the strides that took prides began to integrate too much into the safe spaces that the right have crafted for themselves. The demands for clean air and water and away from the business of gas and oil and of war was all too much. They are angry and still are and with that they are like that Liberal parent who has scolded little (fill in the gender neutral name) one time to many with the adage, “This is why you cannot have nice things!” And with that were sent to bed, to the corner and the feelings of rage, of disappointment and of rejection were burned into them. And with that they studied, the bullied, they mastered the game to ensure they would have access to all that they had been denied and what better way to do so than through the bastion and gates of power – the Ivy League. Once thought of as a haven for intellects (is is a pun that Yale is located a town called New Haven?) and the belief that intellects are in fact liberal by nature as thought does that, they graduated with not one but often two degrees from these hallowed institutions. When I think of the word institutions little good comes to mind, but allow me to digress. When you review the CV’s (yes let us use the Latin word for Resume) those credentials and memberships to the hallowed clubs are owned largely by Men, usually white, often from middle America and Middle Class homes, some who are of privilege and every now and then a White Woman or a Black man. No wonder Affirmative Action is on the next Court’s docket. Ah Justice Jackson, what a hornet’s nest you have entered and yet you possess the same credentials but I am sure they are seen of as less as AA has to your fellow Justice Uncle Tom seen as a demeaning measure of deserved entrance. I must have thought that AA meant you can be a walking fucking moron and get accepted apparently, oh wait you can be? Shit I should have applied. But again I digress, as women do.

The Supremes are a conservative based lot filled with notions of revenge, rectitude and of course moral superiority as the majority are Religious with a CAPITAL R and one even has a spouse who was involved in the insurrection and willing to end Democracy of which her husband sits firmly in command of. As again on the next years docket is just that, an election case that puts the stolen in voting firmly on the forefront, as it will enable States to oversee and command all election results. Don’t like the tally for the candidate, not a problem, toss it with those others in the back of van, a suitcase or in the garbage. If you think North Carolina was gerrymandering the hilt out of the votes, I suggest you examine Governor Ron DeSantis’ Florida version of a voting map. I say, when it doubt draw it yourself. Did not Trump do that with the path of a hurricane once? Guess that is where he got the idea, a Trumpite off the old blockhead. And yet they are on the outs. This profile in The New Yorker is enough to make you be very afraid of DeSantis as he is a grad of both Harvard and Yale and pretty much hates the world in the same vein as Trump. Welcome the 2024 nominee! A Reagan on the spectrum as I see him. And this should be a comfort to families who worry about how Autism is perceived. Uh they are socially inept but academically inclined so what’s to worry!! We had a mentally ill idiot as a President so this cannot be worse. Or can it be? It seems that DeSantis is in as much denial as the Orange Baboon, as he has never faced that fact that he could be Autistic, and instead of embracing it as a tool to succeed he chose it as weapon. And that is where we are in America trying to fight a war with some hand tools and we need the big guns. I think that might be why the Supremes let the Gun law slide in NYC as they know we are going to go all 2nd Amendment nuts here soon.

The Court has decided it will be the de facto law making entity as the Congressional one is dysfunctional and has been now for decades. And with it they are the most conservative Court since the 1930s. Wow that is comforting. And with that we are seeing the slide of the stock market and the parallels to history never end. As for the other two parts of our Government, I am sure that the last time Congress worked was to enact tax cuts and ram through the Covid relief bills of the Trump Administration through. And since then, it has largely been a shit/freak show where little is done but posturing a plenty. Impeachment 2.0 and now a historical and terrifying Investigation that I am afraid will end like the other two – zip on indictments and guilt. As for the other half, certainly not the better one, the Senate, I am not sure what they do but it is where bills go to di but the band plays on as if they are on the Titanic and the iceberg was an 3-D image.

With that, I am not acknowledging, celebrating or caring about the 4th of July and the irony that this is something in which to be proud is hilarious. No folks, no. It is something of which to be ashamed. We are pulling shit out of our asses now to make laws, retract laws and with it taking to social media FOR HOURS to rant, rave and repeat over and over again the same shit. I see that you are really out there mobilizing and organizing or not. Shit I gots fireworks and BBQ’s to go to. Good luck with it all. I am going to the Me to see the Winslow Homer exhibition and then maybe treat myself to lunch and go home. I can’t stand this bullshit and why pretend otherwise. But hey Happy Birthday America. The Native Americans are surely thrilled especially as another Supremes ruling this week found them removing even more their independence and sovereignty. America is exceptional alright.

Not Done Yet

The Federalist Society wants America to become a nation of states, unless the States are annoying and they will use their power to influence and discourage any State from having the audacity to challenge the RULE OF LAW. And that rule is defined by the Original 10 Commandments, whoops I mean Amendments to the Constitution. The Supremes are very much the OG’s when it comes to interpreting that document, so those other Amendments, say the 14th or the 19th, up for grabs.

What I am seeing right now on the left and right is ironically Pride (well it is that month) and Indignation. The Left (of which I am a part) is very good at righteous indignation and it is out in full force right now. Yes storming Union Square Park in Manhattan is going to show them those right wing bastards. Meanwhile the Prayer circle is busy celebrating. Just down the road from where I live, Princeton, an Ivy League bastion that has a bookend just up the road in Connecticut, Yale, are busy sipping their cocktails and slapping each other on the back for a job well done. For the record those two schools have educated by far more right wing Politicians and Judges than they have Liberals. Elizabeth Warren went to Rutgers but taught at Harvard, and maybe she should have stayed there to indoctrinate that crew into liberal thinking.

What I am seeing right now on the left and right is ironically Pride (well it is that month) and Indignation. The Left (of which I am a part) is very good at righteous indignation and it is out in full force right now. Yes storming Union Square Park in Manhattan is going to show them those right wing bastards. Meanwhile the Prayer circle is busy celebrating. Just down the road from where I live, Princeton, an Ivy League bastion that has a bookend just up the road in Connecticut, Yale, are busy sipping their cocktails and slapping each other on the back for a job well done. For the record those two schools have educated by far more right wing Politicians and Judges than they have Liberals. Elizabeth Warren went to Rutgers but taught at Harvard, and maybe she should have stayed there to indoctrinate that crew into liberal thinking.

Currently on the Supreme Court let’s review the creds of that squad. Roberts: Harvard both undergrad and JD; Thomas: Undergrad a holy roller school, JD – Yale. Breyer A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School (for the record the most intellectual and reasonable of all the Justices); Alito from New Jersey no less – Princeton and Yale (duh); Sotomayor (my personal favorite she is so cool) – Princeton and Yale (yes shocking I know!! not really); Kagan – Princeton, M. Phil. from Oxford in 1983, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School – which again she is rarely discussed and like Breyer very low key as you can see she too went to Oxford; Gorsuch Columbia University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and a D.Phil. from Oxford University (again putting him in the same league of Breyer and Kagan and yet he is nothing like the other); Kavanaugh, a double Yale degree… figures; Coney-Barrett is the only non traditional Ivy – as she is Jesus all the time every day all day, B.A. from Rhodes College (a private Christian school in Memphis), J.D. from Notre Dame Law School (Catholic in every way). So again Liberals let’s look at your ranking in schools that are of that tenor and scholastic achievement. The Clintons, both Yale and the Obama’s Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Then we can take a long look at many of our Senators and Representatives and they are outmatched when it comes to this. Biden and Harris are the first President and Vice President combo in 36 years with no Ivy League credentials on their resumes. If you are curious as to the educational achievement of the current Congress take a look right here.

Now with that I want to point out that arrogance, hypocrisy and ignorance is shared by members of both parties it is just the level, depth and breadth that is the distinction. While the Republicans have disdain for anyone not a member of their tribe, they are willing to work with those they find “distasteful” in which to accomplish their goals and as Bill Withers used to sing, “If if feels this good getting used, just keep on using me.” So it explains why Evangelicals, Latin Americans, Gays and Women are willing to align themselves with the Republicans to get what they want. And yes that includes Black People, so get off your high horse and stop telling anyone of these factions you cannot understand why they are voting Republican. Really, I thought you and your kind respect diversity. Oh wait that means of type and kind, not of thought. I have spent the better part of the day fighting “liberals” on the Washington Post comment page and despite even others going after derogatory name calling, refusing to either apologize even when called out by others that they are in fact verbally abusing me for my opinion which was neither derogatory or inflammatory. See the liberal mind set is one of scold and of uniform script and belief you know like Republicans who do the same only they are better at it. That Ivy League education pays off clearly.

If I read one more VOTE comment and the standard change the court bullshit comment I will now get my legally authorized gun and shoot it.. not at anyone but hey I can open carry that but not a joint so I got to do something with my hands. A liberal right now is screaming as the sense of humor of a liberal is just above a 4th grader. Seriously one comment veered to “you pick your boogers” on WaPo. And that is what Liberals are like right now, 4th graders who are pissed that they are not going to the water park. Maybe it is from upbringing they have learned that scolding and reprimanding people work on changing behavior. Well it does it you are 9, not 39. Shut the fuck up and listen you morons.

Most liberals live in pockets or bubbles within their States. They are sure that suburban and rural voters just don’t vote and if they have an issue such as this one they will vote. Really, Abortion is that issue. Abortion? No. I lived in Nashville the blue center to the red zone. The suburbs and rural areas are more conservative and more active in voting than you think. The state has the lowest of all in the Union for voting turnout, so if all of Chatanooga, Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville voted that would mean a larger turnout of liberal educated voters and people of color. No, no they don’t and therefore a minority rule a majority. That mirrors throughout the South and in the last few years these same States have made even voting a challenge for anyone except those highly motivated in which to do so, largely elderly white and conservative. Yes so tell me again about getting out the vote. Fuck off.

Move there you asshole, try your scolding, your reprimanding and dictating what should or should not be done. Really, compete with the rules of order of the South and find yourself shut out. You are going to have to join their churches, their clubs and shut your mouth for years before you are either respected or heard. The culture of the South is family first, heritage first and you aint’ from there, your people aint’ from there so you are climbing an uphill battle. Good luck with it.

And you are competing against the biggest bully pulpit – the Churches. The foot soldiers of the pro life movement have been marching in this army for 40 years and what were you doing during that time? Nothing, not a goddamn thing. Here is what the Catholic Church has to say about the decision yesterday.

“Together as the bishops of Tennessee, we thank the United States Supreme Court for its careful consideration of the constitutional issues surrounding abortion and express our encouragement that it has ruled in favor of the right to life for the unborn.

“Arguments before the court made it clear that our ever-expanding scientific knowledge has identified the fact that everything essential for a growing human life is present from the moment of conception. Only time and nourishment are necessary to bring that life forward, created in the likeness and image of God with the human dignity enshrined by the creator in each of us as His children.”

And here is what a Princeton Professor had to say

Robert P. George, a leading conservative scholar who teaches at Princeton, espoused a kinder way. “Pro-life friends,” George tweeted. “Let us not exult over those of our fellow citizens — good people who are sincerely concerned about women’s welfare — who see the demise of Roe as a disaster. Malice towards none; charity for all.”

And this is what you are up against, two major institutions of import and attacking those on your team for telling you this is not wining hearts and minds. You might try LISTENING. It took them 40 years it will take you that long to change this if you don’t shut the fuck up and listen.

And with that I will provide you an article from a woman who changed teams and made great strides. She aligned with a maniac to accomplish her goals. Fait accompli.

Perhaps more than any other woman, Marjorie Dannenfelser is responsible for the fall of Roe vs. Wade

The president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a nonprofit group that works to end abortion in the United States by electing antiabortion politicians, Dannenfelser has dedicated her adult life to outlawing abortion. In 2016, she played a key role in getting President Trump to commit to appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who oppose abortion.

The Los Angeles Times asked Dannenfelser, 56, about the fall of Roe, her antiabortion journey and her strategy for outlawing abortion nationwide. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser with former President Trump. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

After decades working in antiabortion politics, you are watching Roe vs. Wade fall. In what sense is this a historic moment?

It’s the culmination of almost 50 years of work. There was no certainty that this moment would come at all. But every single time there’s a failure or a setback, this movement has grown. And that is a marker of an authentic human rights movement: It draws more in difficulty than it does in success sometimes.

You’ve written: “No other issue, however worthy, carries a moral weight equal to that of the unborn child in the womb.” How did you get from being a pro-choice Republican to believing that abortion is about human rights, not women’s rights?

I grew up in fairly polite society. You just didn’t think or talk about this issue. I think that polite society has kept the harsh reality of that human rights violation away from the public eye and from one individually. So I never thought about it. I knew that I would have [an abortion] if I needed one. I just considered it part of living.

But that ability to keep what an abortion is out of your thoughts, out of your mind … when I approach the reality of what the object of the abortion is, and then what happens in an abortion, I mean, it is really hard to ignore the reality of a procedure that tears a small human apart limb from limb. It’s that — imagining the too horrible to imagine — that finally set my thoughts in process.

In college at Duke, I started pre-med and ended up in philosophy. I had a lot of friends who were very pro-life. They showed a movie on campus, “The Silent Scream” narrated by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a prolific abortionist who changed his mind to being pro-life. He showed an abortion through a sonogram, and you could see what was happening. I remember I was like, “That is just insulting. I am not going to watch that.” But I had these conversations with people peppering me with difficult questions: “What happens in an abortion?” “What is the object?”

Like, if you’re getting your appendix out, that’s the object. If you’re getting your tonsils taken out, that’s the object. What is the object in an abortion?

Taking stock of the last few decades, how was Roe undone? What were the key turning points? How pivotal was 2016, when you got President Trump to commit to nominating justices who opposed abortion?

All of a sudden, in Jan. 22, 1973, there is a need for a huge movement, because every single pro-life law has been wiped off the books by the Supreme Court. So we required some sort of strategy quick, without any grass roots, just a handful of people. So that first wave was figuring out: “Oh, we need a movement and what do we do?”

In the second wave, the movement started to grow. It built pregnancy help centers trying to reach women to help them at that moment in their lives. There were all sorts of education campaigns. The organic movement grew and grew, but silently in communities and towns and churches all over the country.

Then, in 2012, came the third wave. We decided to very strategically put this at the center of politics: prove the case that this is not only the right thing to do, but the politically smart thing to do, by drawing a contrast between what the other side has achieved, absolute abortion on demand up into the end, paid for by everybody, versus what our candidates were advocating for: some compromise, like a 20-week limit. Such a limit has massive support in every demographic, except for the most hardcore left.

We started to ask presidential candidates to make a pledge of action. With the pledge, it became a primary debate among all the Republican primary candidates: Who’s the most pro-life? That’s exactly what you want. Then when it came to Trump: The commitment from him — because there was so much doubt about who he was and what he would do — was vital. It really came down to a letter from him to me in the pro-life movement, pledging what he would do concretely if he were the president of the United States. So many people didn’t take it seriously, because nobody thought he was gonna win. But he did.

You attribute part of your success to compromise — promoting 20-week limits — but surely your ultimate goal isn’t compromise? It’s to outlaw abortion across the United States? You’ve spoken privately with possible Republican presidential contenders, including Trump, about a federal ban.

Now the door is open, so of course we will walk through it. After nearly 50 years, this is an opportunity to allow the people to speak through their laws through their elected representatives. And so every legislature in the country, including Congress, is now entrusted with this really heavy moral weight to get it right. And so we will be as ambitious for life and for mothers in every single state as consensus will allow.

We will build broad support for the most protective laws for unborn children and assistance for their mothers in every single state. That’s about 30 states where it’s in play and 20 where there’s very little chance and it would require federal legislation. But it’s the same approach for the U.S. Congress, which is not Alabama. It’s very complicated and it requires a president and a Congress that can utter the word “compromise.”

What do you say to the many women who will now take to the streets to protest, upset that the government is making a decision for women that violates their bodily autonomy?

Peace is going to be found. When we, as a country, serve women as they deserve to be served, we don’t make them choose, or we don’t influence them to choose one over the other. We serve both woman and child — and serving them both is going to require a lot out of us. I believe that we can do it together.

We now face abortion outlawed or severely restricted in 26 states, with women traveling to blue states or managing their own abortions. How do you expect the battle to play out in the coming weeks and months?

I expect there will be immediate trigger laws or formerly passed laws that will be allowed to go into effect right away. It might take a few days, but there will be certainly quite a number of states that’ll have laws on the books that reflect what the state actually voted on. But then there are about eight states where it’s going to be far more protracted. In Kansas, there’s a constitutional restriction on pro-life laws, so we have a ballot initiative in August asking the question: Will Kansans be allowed to make their own law on this issue?

With polls showing about six out of 10 Americans oppose overturning Roe, do you anticipate that there’ll be a major backlash for Republicans in November?

No, not based on that. That statistic tells you very little because the American public doesn’t understand what Roe is. Also, the polls show that people want restrictions that Roe does not allow. During the debates, when these elections center around what the will of the people is, then we win.

The majority of Democrats think that abortion should be restricted to just the first trimester. That is absolutely, completely contradictory of Roe v. Wade. There is only one place that the abortion lobby will allow its candidates to go and that is every abortion up until the end, paid for by you and me. That’s it.

But have you really won the argument with the public? Your critics argue that your victory was achieved by pushing a president, who did not win the popular vote, to appoint Supreme Court justices.

Roe was a conversation ended — a complete cap on the ability to do something by the Supreme Court. That was not winning over anybody’s opinion; that was saying your opinion counts for nothing. Now is a moment when your opinion counts for something. And when you look at what we know about what people think already, we know that most of the argument is already won: abortion after the first trimester is rejected in certainly every battleground state.

But your aim is to see abortion banned across America — in states such as California and New York?

Well, if you think that every abortion is the death of a child — like I do — you definitely want to save every child. And serve every mother.

Among antiabortion groups, is there consensus on the path forward? What are the key debates within your movement?

There is more unity in this movement now than I’ve ever seen. But there used to be one front in this battle, now there are 51, and if you include the territories, even more. And so the wheels of democracy are spinning. In each state, there’s a different blueprint. On the national and state level, I have a job to do and that is answering the question: How ambitious can we be here? And what do we need to do to reach that ambition?

Do you think states should do more to criminalize abortions, by prosecuting people who help women travel to other states or access medication abortions? What about prosecuting women themselves?

Never will I support prosecuting women. Susan B. Anthony talked about the evil that abortion is and that the answer is to get to the root causes. The root causes are the people that are feeding off our misery, the people who exploit our situation for money, and the people who circumvent the law by sending pills in the mail. That is a RICO violation. And those are the people that we will go after. When you conspire to break the law, you deserve to be penalized, you deserve to have your medical license taken away, you deserve to have your corporate privileges suspended.

That will never be on the back of the woman who needs and deserves more than she’s receiving from this group of people who give her one thing when she’s in crisis: a pill and a lonely room with no help, no doctor supervision, no real plan for what will happen if she hemorrhages.

You’ve done all this work to stop women from getting abortions. What are you doing to help women in red states who get pregnant and may not have the financial resources and support to care for their children?

We’ve been working on a particular program for the last few years [Her Pregnancy and Life Assistance Network, or Her PLAN, which aims to help pregnant women find the medical and material support they need to continue pregnancy]. I’ve talked to, so far, 22 governors about the need to meet women where they are and make sure that we are comprehensive in how we serve them.

What we’ve done so far with our allies in four states [Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia and West Virginia], and hope to do in 30 in four years, is comprehensive and massive inventories to make sure that women and children in the first two years of the child’s life have access to seven different points of care. They include serving her if she is addicted, serving her if she has no housing, serving her and her child if she has no healthcare or childcare.

Serving what her particular needs are, without taking the life of her child. Affirming her life and affirming the life of her child by believing in her and helping her build instead of undermining her life.

Well Prayer ain’t working

As an Atheist I could have told you that. As the testimony continued in Congress yesterday including families of victims of the Tops Grocery Story and Uvalde Massacre, a Pediatrician described what he found with regards to the Children’s bodies: Dr. Guerrero described returning to the emergency room to horrifying sights: two children who he said had been “pulverized” and “decapitated” by bullets.

In Matthew McConaughey’s briefing he shared that the only way a family could identify the body of their daughter was by her green Converse shoes with a heart on the toe.

And yet a nutfuck with a gun shows up at Brett Kavanaugh the Supreme Court Justice house and Mitch McConnell goes histrionic over getting special protection for them in wake of the protests that have resulted from the Roe leak. Really? Not build a fortress in which they are to live to protect gun rights instead. As that is the suggestion moving forward with regards to Gun Safety.

Then I read the story about a 10 year old and her killing a friend of her Mother during the two women’s argument. There is a lot to unpack about this story but the reality is that this is the whole issue about gun safety and parents arming themselves with weapons, no training, no required security to prevent children from accessing the gun and of course the insurance that would pay for injuries and treatments if you well survive a gun attack. Nope lets make sure Kids are armed and dangerous or at least surrounded by those who are.

To quote a Mother, Zeneta Everhart: “To the lawmakers who feel that we do not need stricter gun laws, let me paint a picture for you: My son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15,” said Everhart, who paused in describing her son’s injuries. “As I clean his wounds, I can feel pieces of that bullet in his back. Shrapnel will be left inside of his body for the rest of his life. Now, I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children.” She went on: “This is who we are as a nation,” testified Everhart, “I continuously hear after every mass shooting that this is not who we are as Americans and as a nation. Hear me clearly: This is exactly who we are.”

Well it is not who I am. I have had enough I don’t need to paint a picture or visualize the damage. Start releasing those crime scene photos, the autopsies of the children and their wounds to see what damage the AK 15 does to the human body. Can anyone really defend the reasoning behind why we must have said type of weapon? Oh yes “to kill wild hogs, prairie dogs and “other types of varmints.” WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?

I watched the election returns and yes that is who we are. Almost all of the primary candidates ran on a campaign of FEAR and stopping crime, the recall effort of the City Attorney in SF who actually tried to do what he promised, reform the system was promptly kicked out office. Yeah we like our guns on Cops, on anyone and everyone. We feel safer. That is the biggest oxymoron I have ever heard. Emphasis on moron.

In the meantime the whack jobs are getting elected onto School Boards and in positions of significant authority but alas smaller less noticeable ones across the country. The County Clerks that verify Election processes will be there making sure the vote is safe or is it? And when I read about another Ivy League Professor who was angry and ran for Governor of Massachusetts, was “Oh no another Masshole liberal who is failing to do the heavy lifting first.” I adored Elizabeth Warren and her failed run for President was largely due to that she was associated with that same moniker. Her origin story (not the ham fisted Native American thing) but the one of being from working class Oklahoma roots, being a single mother and actually making it into Law School (not Harvard she taught there but was not a Graduate she went to Rutgers folks, right down the road here) and then into the halls of the Ivy League and into the White House where she was a Candidate to run a powerful CONSUMER protection agency and in turn then elected against great odds to the Senate. She did not tell her story in a way that resonates with well working class men and women. She was amazing with small girls and her angle on that was a powerful message. I for some reason cannot figure out what Kamala Harris’s was. Again my point here is that not all qualified people get the job they deserve or want.

When I heard of the NYT columnist, Nick Kristof, running for Governor of Oregon, I was shocked and NOT impressed. Sorry but really? I felt The New York Magazine did a great profile on that failed campaign and it had a lot of problems, the first the Candidate himself. And this did not help in the least: Kristof knew he had not lived in Oregon long enough (year) to meet the legal requirement to hold office (three years). He hired lawyers and corralled a stable of allies to argue his case in the media, which was that voters should decide if such rules matter. And this is another issue of import: Asked if he would consider a state office besides the office of governor, he said, “In Oregon?” He paused. “If I’m trying to figure out how I can bring about the greatest change on issues I care about, I’m just not sure that that’s how I can do it.” Besides, he added, “one of the advantages of losing one’s job very publicly is that you get a lot of job offers.

Just because you think you can doesn’t always mean you should. And with that the Conservatives running for Election offices, County Clerks and other more theatrical positions, will have much access and information on how to work within a bureaucracy and bring about the change that Kristof spoke of, only not in a good way. Again the Senator Patty Murray began her career as a School Board Member and she is a liberal Senator folks. Maybe that is a way to get that foot in the door, nah fuck it I want to be President. Okay Donald. I often look back at the Kentucky Clerk who refused to honor an application for a same sex couple on the grounds of her religion and beliefs which was ultimately refused to be heard by the Supreme Court at the time would likely face a much more receptive court if she did so today.

My criticism of the Ivy League prof was that in the end she dropped out but noted it was good for her “mental health” I thought well great, another reason I am glad I don’t live in Massachusetts. And as May was Mental Health Awareness Month and largely due to the mass shootings which we blamed on mental health, we failed to examine and acknowledge the many elected to State Offices who clearly have mental health issues. Now might be the time to note that and with that, Marjorie Taylor Greene I am speaking to you, not unlike the voices in your head.

I am exhausted from having to explain that I may not agree with all good Liberals on everything and I don’t. And I should not have to apologize nor be verbally abused or dismissed as angry, strident or whatever other euphemism is for BITCH. Besides I prefer Cunt. We truly refuse to hear truths, facts or even opinions that differ from ours. The one thing the Religious Right and the MAGA crowd have done is manage to put aside many of their fundamental differences to unite under the tent and promote the Big Lie and with that they all get something. Religious crackpots got the Supreme Court of their dreams and the MAGA crowd get guns. Win-Win for them, Lose-Lose for us.

“America is inherently violent … I continuously hear, after every mass shooting, that ‘this is not who we are as Americans’ … This is exactly who we are.” – Zeneta Everhart

Feel like you don’t fit in either political party? Here’s why

November 9, 20212:00 PM ET

Domenico Montanaro NPR

Protesters gather at a rally to demonstrate against the LA City Council’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for city employees and contractors on Monday in Los Angeles. A new study from the Pew Research Center breaks down ideology within political parties, including by views on the role of government.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

The idea that Americans are polarized makes it seem as if there are only two sides in politics — liberal and conservative, Democratic and Republican.

But Americans are far more complicated politically, a new Pew Research Center typology shows in a study that gives a clearer picture of the full spectrum of American political views.

Americans are divided not just by party but also within them, enough so for Pew to sort Americans ideologically into nine distinct categories (one more than in its last typology four years ago, with some decidedly different contours).

Clear lines emerge when it comes to race, inequality and what the government should do about it. There are also decidedly different views on the role of government overall, economic policy, immigration, religion, the United States’ standing in the world and — for Republican-leaning groups — former President Donald Trump.

What’s more, despite surveys having found broad support for a third party outside the two major ones, the study shows that there’s no magic middle. In fact, the study finds that the three groups with the most self-identified independents “have very little in common politically.”

There are also clear implications for control of Congress. While there has been much focus on Democratic divisions between progressive and moderate wings in Congress, the study finds there are more divisions among Republican groups on the issues. But where Republicans have an advantage is having more of a sense of urgency about who is in charge in Washington. The strongest Republican groups more so than the strongest Democratic ones think next year’s midterms “really matter.”

The typology was created using more than 10,000 survey interviews over an 11-day period this past July. A typical national survey has about 1,000 respondents. This is the eighth typology Pew has created since 1987.

Here’s an overview of Pew’s nine categories (to see where you fit, you can take Pew’s quiz here):

Faith and Flag Conservatives (10% of the public)

Committed Conservatives (7%)

Populist Right (11%)

Ambivalent Right (12%)

Stressed Sideliners (15%)

Outsider Left (10%)

Democratic Mainstays (16%)

Establishment Liberals (13%)

Progressive Left (6%)

Republican-leaning groups

Republican-leaning groups largely believe government is doing too much, that everyone has the ability to succeed, obstacles that once made it harder for women and nonwhites to get ahead are now gone, white people largely don’t benefit from societal advantages over Black people, that political correctness is a major problem and military might is key to keeping the U.S. a superpower.

Two-thirds also think the Republican Party should not accept elected officials who have been openly critical of Trump.

They divide, however, on economic, social and foreign policy. On economics, there are splits on whether corporations make a fair amount of profit and if taxes should be raised on the wealthy. They also don’t fully agree on which is more important — oil, coal and natural gas expansion or developing alternative energy supplies.

On social issues, they diverge on whether same-sex marriage or abortion should be legal, if government policies should reflect religious beliefs and even whether they feel uncomfortable hearing people speak a language other than English in public places. There are also differences on whether election changes that make it easier to vote would make elections less secure.

On foreign affairs, some think the U.S. should take allies’ interests into account; others do not.

Faith and Flag Conservatives

• 23% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
• skew the oldest in age of the Republican-leaning groups
• deeply conservative on nearly all issues
• religious and want Christianity front and center in public life
• very politically engaged; nearly 9 in 10 believe who controls Congress after next year’s midterms “really matters” — the highest of any group
• overwhelmingly white and Christian
• among Trump’s strongest supporters — most believe Trump definitely or probably won the 2020 election
• roughly 4 in 5 say too much attention has been paid to the Jan. 6 insurrection

Committed Conservatives

• just 15% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
• highly educated, loyal Republicans who are very politically active; nearly 8 in 10 believe the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”
• pro-business
• want limited government
• less restrictive on immigration than the other three GOP-leaning groups
• more “globalist” — in other words, they believe U.S. involvement with the world and with allies should be prioritized
• less enthusiastic about Trump, but generally big fans of former President Ronald Reagan

Populist Right

• 23% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
• among the least likely to have a college degree and among the most likely to live in a rural area
• hard-liners on immigration, even more so than Faith and Flag Conservatives
• highly critical of the U.S. economic system; a majority believes the “economic system in the country unfairly favors powerful interests, that businesses in this country make too much profit and that taxes on household income over $400,000 should be raised”
• strong Trump supporters; 4 in 5 would like him to remain a prominent figure in politics, and almost 6 in 10 want him to run again
• about 8 in 10 believe the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”

Ambivalent Right

• 18% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
• the youngest and among the least religious and politically active of the Republican-leaning groups
• most don’t identify as “conservative” politically, but are conservative economically, on issues of race and in that they prefer smaller government
• more moderate than other Republicans on immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization
• lean toward the GOP but are not enamored with it; almost two-thirds would like Trump to not remain a national figure, and, in fact, a quarter identifies with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents
• the only GOP-oriented group to say President Biden definitely or probably legitimately received the most votes in the 2020 election, and only about 4 in 10 believe the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”

Crossovers

Stressed Sideliners

• 15% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 13% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents
• financially stressed and tend to tilt left economically and conservative socially
• the group to which Hispanic Republicans are the most likely to belong
• largely disengaged from politics; only about 4 in 10 voted in 2020, and fewer than half believe the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”

Democratic-leaning groups

While Democratic-leaning groups generally agree on many issues and say that problems exist when it comes to race and economic inequality, there is an intensity gap about how much should be done about those problems and how radical the solutions should be.

Pew notes that in past typologies, it has found cracks among Democratic groups on social issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana, but those no longer exist. Instead, now the divides are about how liberal the party should be.

These Democratic-leaning groups believe in a strong federal government, one that should do more to solve problems. They also agree that the economic system unfairly favors the powerful and that taxes on big businesses and corporations should be raised, as should the minimum wage (to $15 an hour).

They feel more needs to be done to achieve racial equality, that nonwhites face at least some discrimination, that significant obstacles remain for women to get ahead and that voting is a fundamental right and should not be restricted. When it comes to major foreign policy decisions, they agree that allies should be taken into consideration.

Fissures exist with regard to U.S. military power and, to a lesser extent, social and criminal justice, as well as immigration.

Progressive Left

• 12% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents
• young and highly educated
• 4 in 5 call themselves “liberal,” with 42% saying they are “very liberal”
• largest Democratic group to say it backed Sen. Bernie Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primaries (though members of this group broke heavily for Biden in the general election versus Trump)
• very politically engaged; a little over 8 in 10 believe the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”
• more than two-thirds white
• extremely liberal policy positions

Establishment Liberals

• 23% of Democratic groups
• very politically engaged; 77% say the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”
• supportive of the Democratic Party and its leaders
• liberally minded, but prefer more measured approaches
• when it comes to race, they say they recognize societal ills and that more needs to be done to correct them, but instead of wholesale change, they say it should come from within existing laws and institutions
• more likely to back compromise and more welcoming to those who agree with Republicans on some things
• generally upbeat about politics and the country

Democratic Mainstays

• 28% of Democratic-leaning groups, which makes them the largest of the Democratic-leaning groups
• older, less likely to have a college degree than other Democratic groups
• most identify as moderate
• Black Democrats are concentrated in this group, though the group is the most racially and ethnically diverse of all the groups
• have liberal views on race, economics and the social safety net, but are more conservative on immigration and crime and are pro-military power for the most part
• 73% say the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”

Outsider Left

• 16% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning groups
• youngest of the groups that lean Democratic
• liberal, especially on issues of race, immigration and climate
• are less politically active than other Democratic groups, are less reliable voters, are more likely to identify as independents; when they do vote, they break overwhelmingly Democratic
• not thrilled with the Democratic or Republican parties — or the country writ large, for that matter
• most say other countries are better than the U.S., and almost 9 in 10 don’t feel there are candidates who represent their views
• only about half say the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”

The Point Is

Frequently when I hear a story I have to ask the question: The point is what exactly? Is it to teach me a moral lesson, to impart wisdom via experience, to vent or just talk about yourself. I am all for all of it but there comes a point when I get it, I really do. The media and their obsession with the unvaxxed has reached a critical level of RED. Remember the days of color warnings from Homeland Security? The 20th “anniversary” of 9/11 was a few days ago and maybe we need to resurrect that one from the ashes of dust and apply it to Covid.

I watched a little Tik Tok girl explain the math in clear pictures about how high the percentage is for the vaccinated to contract Covid, die from Covid versus those unvaxxed. Putting it simply it is now 1:8 for unvaxxed to contract the disease. So in other words one person out of eight is likely to contract the virus. It is 1:6 to die from it. For the vaxxed it is 1:213,000. Death is 1:865,000. I think that says it all.

This week I read of the 6th (note that number) conservative radio host to die from Covid. Now before I launch into that idiots history of verbal abuse and tirades that included mocking AIDS to Covid I want to point out that what is fascinating is that there are that many angry white conservative men who seem to have radio DJ gigs. It seems to be a career path for those with a nominal skill set, see Rush Limbaugh, also dead just not Covid, as an example. Who knew? That they are dying of a rapid clip also odd as they seem anti social and I thought work alone in a booth so how does that happen? Another reason to move into podcasting clearly.

Here is his story: For years, Bob Enyart used his conservative media platform in Denver to mock those who died of AIDS by name or call for women who receive abortions to face the death penalty. Recently, the radio talk-show host — who had successfully sued the state over mask mandates and capacity limits in Colorado churches last year — joined a chorus of conservative voices who have bashed the coronavirus vaccine and vowed to stay unvaccinated. But weeks after he and his wife, Cheryl, tested positive for the virus after being unvaccinated, Enyart died of covid-19, his radio co-host announced Monday. Enyart was 62.

Well another asshole with a trip planned to join the Big Daddy in the Sky. Rest in something or whatever. And with that we have the Minister willing to sign off your religious privilege to get a vaccine exemption. Okay sure, Praise Be! Jackson Lahmeyer, a pastor in Tulsa is encouraging people to donate to his Tulsa church so they can become an online member and get his signature on a religious exemption from coronavirus vaccine mandates.

Lahmeyer said he has not taken any of the three authorized coronavirus vaccines and believes they were created with aborted fetal tissue. (Developers of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines used cell lines from aborted fetal tissue to test whether the vaccines worked, but the vaccines were not developed from the same cell lines. While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine used lab-replicated fetal cells during its production process, the vaccine does not contain any fetal cells.)

Lahmeyer said he is not anti-vaccine, but he has already had the virus and believes that people who are infected with it can be treated with medications like ivermectin, which is used to treat parasites in humans and horses. And the best part is, he is running for office to unseat the current Senator James Lankford who rescinded his pro Trump stance after the insurrection on January 6th. Oh Oklahoma when the wind sweeps down the plains it collects a lot of garbage.

There are many positions with regards to religious “objections” but in reality that is a false flag as I wrote about yesterday in Time Out about Mississippi and their stringent vaccination requirements regardless of faith and their no exception rule.

Then we have the nice family, usually one of color the hardest hit group with regards to Covid once again going Nikki Minaj where a cousin of a friend’s cousin had the vaccine and ended up with a swollen ball or a dead hooker in the bed. Right now #MyCousinTooktheVaccine is trending on Twitter, so there you go. And with that, today the Post has the story below. And this again is a great example of how the 1:3 ration of transmission works. A family of four and three were infected. The Delta Variant seems to have extended that to plus one and it is unclear that this was the case as once again we rarely fact check let alone contact trace, but regardless you can see the way this transmits and it is over a 72 hour period, not 14. Again that is the key from exposure and the need for immediate testing. Fuck all the rest.

A pregnant woman hospitalized with covid miscarried her baby. Her husband regrets that they weren’t vaccinated.

By Jessica Lipscomb The Washington Post September 15 2021

Juan Guevara was the first in the family to get sick.

In mid-August, the 44-year-old father of two came down with a sore throat, a fever and the chills. He soon tested positive for the coronavirus.

Two days after he received the test result, his pregnant wife started feeling ill, too. At the family’s home in Victorville, Calif., about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, Esmeralda Ramos began complaining about muscle pain and headaches. Her back was hurting. Then, she started coughing.

Worried about the baby, who was due in November, Ramos made the decision to drive herself to the hospital. Still sick himself, Guevara needed to be home to take care of their 2- and 7-year-olds, the latter of whom had also tested positive.

Over the next few weeks, Ramos’s condition worsened and she was placed on a ventilator. On Sunday, Guevara got a call from the hospital informing him that the doctors could no longer hear the baby’s heartbeat.

“When I got to the hospital on Sunday afternoon, unfortunately they told me that he had passed away,” Guevara told The Washington Post.

Neither Guevara nor Ramos, 43, had received the coronavirus vaccine. Guevara told The Post that he was unsure about doing so and that his wife feared the shot would negatively affect the baby.

“She was always worried about the baby,” he said in a phone interview early Wednesday.

Ramos tested positive for the coronavirus just a few days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance recommending that pregnant people get vaccinated. Although the CDC had previously said that those who are pregnant were “eligible” for the vaccine, the agency maintained a neutral stance that stopped short of an official recommendation.

As of Sept. 4, only about 25 percent of the pregnant population in the U.S. had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to a CDC data set.

CDC officials now say the vaccine does not increase the risk of miscarriage and that the benefits of being vaccinated against the coronavirus outweigh any known risks. Pregnant people who do contract the virus are more likely to experience severe symptoms that require hospitalization and the need for a ventilator, and they have an increased risk for preterm births and “other adverse pregnancy outcomes.”

Guevara said he had to wait more than a week to visit his wife in the hospital because of his own illness. After he received a negative test result, he rushed to her bedside. At the time, Ramos seemed to be in fair health, although she still had that cough.

“She was okay. She was talking to me. She was fine,” Guevara recalled.

But in the coming days, Ramos’s oxygen levels dropped, and the couple followed the doctors’ recommendation that she be placed on the ventilator. And on Sunday, more than seven months into her pregnancy, Ramos miscarried. The couple had planned to name the baby Jonathan Julius.

Guevara said early Wednesday that he has been unable to communicate with his wife, who is sedated and “very critical right now.” He has tried to stay positive for their children, praying that their mother returns home.

In retrospect, Guevara said he “shouldn’t have listened” to other people’s opinions about the vaccine, including those who questioned why he needed it. Once those seeds of doubt were planted, they took root.

“Different people told me different stories,” he told The Post. “Why get something that I don’t need? It was just me being stubborn.”

Guevara said he plans to get vaccinated as soon as he can — and he encourages others to do the same.

“Wear your mask and get vaccinated as soon as possible. Don’t even think about it,” he said. “People are going to regret it just like me.”

A Shallow Gesture

The Hat Shop in Nashville selling Stars of David pins/patches with No Vaccine moniker has “apologized”. This made both International and National news, something Nashville pisses itself to be on as often as possible unless of course it exposes the true underbelly of what defines Nashville – Anti Semitic, Racism, Sexism, LGBQT bigotry and of course Domestic Terrorism.

In a recent comment I made on the Washington Post, I was derided for calling Nashville a “hot mess.” Well that clearly is from someone who lives there in their proverbial bubble or visits there from the white trash towns and cities that feed the tourist trap mentality of the town. Conventions make a large draw and I seriously wonder if that business model will go forward given the pandemic and the fear of super spreader events but I suspect it will but just more constrained and refined. But this time few criticized me when I commented on the below article as again this only continues to prove and validate my opinions from one who lived there and witnessed the endlessly idiocy that many openly displayed as a mark of character. I recall the many conversations that I wandered away from utterly dismayed if not amazed at the level of rage and ignorance masked behind the accent that conveyed what is commonly referred to as Southern Hospitality but is actually passive aggression, which anyone from Seattle would recognize as that is their version, called the Seattle Freeze. Two cities that when it comes to politics are on the opposite end of the spectrum but with regards to human behavior, identical twins. Again I point to the sheer number of White Supremacists that have come from the area both in history and in the present, the region shares a connection that is almost umbilical.

But with that, no retail store would be quite as blatant in demonstrating a sheer level of idiocy and arrogance that dominates the mentality as it does in Nashville. To take a symbol of such hatred and white supremacy that led to the deaths of over 9 Million and placed us into a World War over the rights to pursue a democracy is not lost as again Zip Tie Guy lived and worked there, so there is some truth to the statement, “Those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

When you read the “apology” I recognized it as the faux attempt to acknowledge that it was an error in judgement, there is little there that seems to recognize the egregiousness of this sick, sick need to appropriate such a hateful symbol as one of political positioning regarding of all things vaccinations again tells me that education in the region lacks tenfold. As one who actually worked in the schools, or as I called them – dumpsters, it again serves to remind me of the shame I felt every time I walked inside the doors of one. The confusion over religion is not one to overlook as many are Fundamentalist Christians who do not accept Judaism as a true faith, as they were the ones behind the death of Christ; however, that said they covet Jerusalem as the birthplace of Christ and will defend the Apartheid of Israel as a means to ensure access. Again, the right there are very engaged in self-interest, those who are not like them are “others” and are dismissed and marginalized in society. But they are not beyond using them in order to meet their needs and advance their agenda. And this shop owner is simply patronizing anyone distressed, she has no true measure of regret. I met many like her, they profess good Christian values but when it comes to money they will go to great lengths to ensure their cut of that pie is always secured. That endless bullshit is something I became quite familiar and I called, “So Nashville.”

As for the Representative “who shall not be named” (as why give her more attention) compared vaccination requirements like Nazi Germany, again clearly shows how illiterate and ignorant many are in the region. I had many conversations with Children who also displayed a dismal level of oblivion when it came to facts and knowledge beyond a simplistic world view. The future members of Q are there and one day will come of age and they will be just like these women, ignorant, arrogant and unapologetic.

A Nashville hat shop is apologizing after advertising anti-vaccine yellow Star of David badges

By Lateshia Beachum The Washington Post May 30, 2021

A Nashville hat store is facing backlash after announcing on social media that it was selling yellow patches similar to the Star of David with the words “NOT VACCINATED,” sparking widespread condemnation, a protest and severed business ties.

Iconic hat company Stetson announced Saturday that it will stop selling its merchandise at HatWRKS, the company at the center of the controversy. Goorin Bros., another prominent hat company, also announced its distribution with HatWRKS would end immediately.

“Stetson condemns antisemitism and discrimination of any kind,” the company said in a statement. “As a result of the offensive content and opinions shared by HatWRKS in Nashville, Stetson and our distribution partners will cease the sale of all Stetson products.”

The incident, which came after a Republican congresswoman compared the House’s mask rules to the Nazis’ oppression of Jews, is the latest flare-up over vaccines in the United States and follows a recent spate of anti-Jewish attacks connected to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Instagram post advertising the badges has since been deleted by the company, but not after many people, including descendants of Holocaust victims, weighed in on the matter.

Author Min Jin Lee called the badges “immoral & hurtful.”

“It is an anti-Semitic gesture in a time of rising anti-Semitism,” she wrote on Twitter. “Our *chronic* ignorance of history, science & law allows Americans to continuously harm ourselves & others.”

Gigi Gaskins, who is listed as HatWRKS’s owner in public records, apologized Saturday on Instagram for the merchandise resembling the badges the Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust.

“In NO WAY did i intend to trivialize the Star of David or disrespect what happened to millions of people,” she wrote. “My hope was to share my genuine concern & fear, and to do all that i can to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again.”

Previously, Gaskins had said people should be “outraged by tyranny” in the world and blamed her detractors for not understanding what is happening around them. In another post, she alluded to concerns about coronavirus restrictions and stated that she was a “target of the mob.”

Protesters gathered outside the store Saturday with a large sign that read, “No Nazis in Nashville.” Others sang that they didn’t want the hats or the hate.

“To me, it’s willful ignorance,” Roger Abramson, an attorney, told WSMV. “The information is out there. People are willfully ignoring facts, information and history because it doesn’t fit what they want to believe or it doesn’t fit some narrative they have.”

The company’s Instagram feed shows several posts expressinghostility and misinformation onvaccination, comparing wearing masks to government suppression of citizens. More than a dozen posts were marked by Instagram as false since November.

The controversy over the Star of David patches comes after recent comments from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who in a podcast compared Democrats requiring masks to be worn on the House floor to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other Republicans condemned Greene for the comparison.

“Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling,” he said in a statement. “The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history. The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.

Emerging form the Chrysalis

As we now come out from out pods we face a new set of challenges that are not just about wearing a mask, for those we have been wearing for years not just quite as visible.

America seems to be divided into two camps – Trump or No Trump – with nary a voice in between. Funny I loathe Republicans on average and yet there are some whom I a have found agreement, that yes, Trump is a stain on America, not just a political party. True that may be the only thing we agree upon but in the goal of saving Democracy perhaps this is when we cross lines to pursue a common goal. Gosh that used to be the foundation of Government the ability to compromise.

In my private life I have embraced a “No Compromise” mantra. This is not about Politics as well I have never changed my views if anything I have gone further left and this seems to be a trait I share with President Biden, who would have thunk it and yet I deeply respect him and his way of doing business to restore confidence in the American Government. Again, I was deeply concerned and those were valid but he proves that people do change and are capable of it at any age.

But the reality is that we are on the same “side” and even on that side we have a vast group that are not all on the same “page” and this too brings divisiveness and in turn a need to listen, to hear and address issues that are of import and in turn find some level of compromise. And I am all for it. But we all have lines and again as I am not engaged in any political issue at this time nor in a professional environment it is easier for me to not have to actually address much of it. I am being solicited right now with the upcoming primaries in the State and I was blissfully unaware of it until two young me knocked at my door. Since then I have had a phone call and another knock (this time I did not answer) about the vote. I will vote and that will be the extent of my commitment after I have had a chance to review the ballot, review the campaign websites and make my decisions at that moment. Then I mail it back and wait for results, and I will do the same at the end. Some times it is easier and you know the issues/candidates and have made such decisions early on and little will waiver your decision and we have seen what results with that and it was to say the least odd. I am never that vested to take up arms on any issue even when I am deeply committed.

Today, The Washington Post had an opinion piece by a Conservative columnist discussing the upcoming National Week of Conversation: The goal of America Talks is to engage at least 10,000 “conversation participants” through the magic of video conferencing in one-on-one, face-to-face dialogues based on political differences. “Each conversation will provide a repairing stitch to America’s frayed social fabric, as participants shift perspective from ‘us and them’ to ‘you and me,’ ” according to the program description.

Well if any indication how well this will go, one only needs to look at the comment page. I and another poster tried to provide a perspective that attempts to communicate and establish common ground may be essential to improve the sectarianism that dominates our culture and that it both sides (just that phrase alone is a trigger warning) has issues with regards to seeing a middle ground. And the game was on! The responses I got were of course insulting and idiotic, being called a Trumpster was my favorite. I have heard that before as I am not a fan of Dr. Fauci, but the point was made as if you did not know any better it looked like the liberal version of a Reddit hate speech board. I used to say that in Seattle they were so vested in being liberal, that if you failed to follow the sheep mentality the ad hominem attacks were at least multi syllabic in tone. It appears that has not changed.

This is what I wrote:

The reality is that this is akin to Stand Your Ground only without guns.   I have lived in the most liberal of bastions, Seattle, lived in the most Conservative, Nashville and now live in the most diverse, Jersey City.   Now after spending 437 days in the Chrysalis to emerge in to the post pandemic, not quite yet but sorta world will require navigation skills that a self driving Tesla can barely manage.

Both Liberals and Conservatives have issues with anyone who doesn’t follow the script.  In reality they are both sheep with the idea they are right and anyone who is different in thought, idea or belief is therefore wrong.  Look at vaccines it is not just MAGA heads, they are Religious or have some sort of Trauma associated with the idea of getting a  vaccine that has little if anything to do with it.  Look at the comment page, I wish Dr. Fauci would retire, he is not someone we need anymore to spread the word.  I am very liberal but his baggage is wide and deep and I recall him from another pandemic and frankly don’t like the man.  I was called a myraid of names on this very message board.   I still am anytime I don’t agree with all the women that we are all victims of men and their nasty ways.  Hey I have plenty of issues with men but going maskless should not be a sign that means we are now all going to be sexually harassed.  Grow up and grow a spine.  And let the name calling begin

We have an entire generation now addicted and the one preceding it thanks to the pandemic addicted to magical 3×5 cards and the medium supposedly so social that they get all their “friends” and support via invisible faces online.  This is not how I made friend, got laid or found a job. But it is now.  So no one is talking to anyone outside their “pod” the pandemic made that clear that we like working from home, not having to go out unless it is with out own kind.  They sang it best in West Side Story.  We like our tribes to be just like us, read the comments they alone prove it.

This is the response: What an incomprehensible mix of shade and whataboutism.

Now this troll is commenting throughout the comment section like it is his personal domain and name calling and ranting and raving about how he will not tolerate any Trump lover. It is a point of amusement as he is exactly the same type of person we mock on the left about the right. He proved my point. And that is where we are, we hate each other unless we parrot each other, we follow the script and share the single Borg mind. And this shows that the rise in Anti Semitic, Asian attacks are just going to be pushed to the front of the line as they have the eye of the storm. Remember MeToo and Black Lives Matter? Well they are so 2019, 2020 and we have new hate to process and protest.

Right now the uptick in gun violence is more insidious and intentional than before the pandemic. Settling beefs versus robbery seem to be the real reason for the acts that have led to several mass shootings in just the past 72 hours but the use of guns cannot be ignored. . But overall there is no clear reason which again shows we have a lot of rage to contain in which to move forward.

I truly think I hate Millennials. I said hate which is a strong emotion when it comes to that type of statement, as it would mean I would hate anyone in a class of people for simply being age 23-28; and those type of generalization seems both broad and absurd. Now change that out and replace it with, a specific Race, Gender, Religion, or Sexuality and you see the point. So how can I say I have a Cognitive Bias against those 23-28 and that is regardless of race, sexuality, gender or religion as well as they do overlap, and can exceptions be made? Face it we all possess some bias and mine with regards to Milennials does affect how I interact with them. Do we not all have a bias or preconception about some group of people some of the time. It can be as benign as fans of a sports team , we all do judge and in turn it affects our perceptions. The MAGA hats are not all Q’Anon’s or are Evangelical, or White Supremacists but on the Venn Diagram of life have an immense crossover correlation, so it makes it an effort to discern where they fall on the wheel. And with that what dialogue can I have with any of them? None; it is a waste of time and serves no purpose. But maybe if I try to I can learn what brought them there and in turn treat them at least with a modicum of dignity and model how one should treat those that are different than you. Do we not do that with children? Where do you think some of these beliefs are learned and in turn unlearned?

The Twitterverse, Reddit and of course Facebook have endless pages and groups dedicated to whatever their fan base is and to the dogma that dictates membership. I do them all but stick to pimping the Blog and occasionally commenting on writers pages/groups that I belong. But I do not expect much from them in the form of emotional or intellectual support. I do get some professional assistance and advice and that is why I am there, beyond that no. The idea that we are building a writers audience from any of those seems utterly absurd to me but okay whatever hoops you do you do but at one point is there any real data that proves this method is working and successful? If you do, name three.

As I have said my encounters online and in person with Millennials usually don’t go well, the generation gap is too wide to traverse and I am really not all that keen on caring anymore to try. There is that “no compromise” thing again. The kid at the wine store, the kid at the coffee shop and the endless other service folks I had spent most of my time with the last few years in both Nashville and Jersey have exhausted if not tested my patience and I just can’t anymore. They are not bad people they are just not my people. And that brings me back to the article about having conversations with those not like me. I have and it wears out hard depending on the differences, just the nasty comments alone I received on the post told me or at least proved to me that liberals were no less vitriolic and obsessive than their conservative counterparts, just with a better vocabulary and moral high ground.

So as we emerge from our cocoon and enter the world, will be Butterflies that land from petal to petal or will we be snatched from our perch and put into a collection to be admired and more importantly ignored, that is safer despite the fact that there is no life left to be had. Many of us who survived the pandemic without contracting the virus will still have the effects of a contagion, a toxic mix of pain and sludge, like a fungus that will be hard to rid and they are the ones most dangerous despite their appearance.